Naveen & Tier
by AzaleaRill
Summary: (Genderswap - though it's not obvious until the end of the 2nd chapter) This is the Disney story you know...or some of it. Names have been changed and our beast isn't hairy.
1. Chapter 1

**All familiar quotes and character names from the Walt Disney movie are credited to [Chapman, Brenda. _Movie Script for Beauty and the Beast_. Burbank: Walt Disney Pictures, 1991. Print.] **

**Anything not recognizable as having come from the movie is the original work of the author.**

* * *

"Naveen?"

The young man rushed up to the cell. "Father? What is this?"

"How did you find me?" Maurice asked, but began to cough and shiver, cutting off his words.

"Your hands are like ice," said Naveen, grasping at his father through the bars. "We have to get you out of here!"

"Naveen, leave this place," Maurice interrupted his son as soon as he got his breath back.

"First, you tell me who's done this to you!" Naveen pulled a blade from his belt and held it purposefully.

"No time to explain. You must go now!"

"I won't leave you!" Naveen began to pull at the bars, looking for some way for his father to get past them. Suddenly, points like daggers dug into his flesh as something grabbed his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" a voice demanded.

Naveen whipped around, brandishing his blade. He heard cloth tear and the razer edge skidded uselessly on something that sounded like the scrape of steel on rough stone. Whatever had grabbed him lurched back into the shadows.

"Run Naveen!" urged his father, clasping fearfully at his son's jerkin. The skulking creature circumnavigated the dark circle beyond the light to bar his exit down the tower stairs.

"Who's there? Who are you!" Naveen demanded of the thing, ignoring his father's senseless pleas to flee.

"The master of this castle," said a voice that sounded like the slither of scales over sand.

"I've come for my father," Naveen stated since the thing had asked. "You will let him out!"

A hissing whisper of laughter was the only response.

"He's just a sick old man! Why do you have him locked up here?"

"Trespassing," the thing said in something more akin to a hiss than a human voice. "He is my prisoner and there is nothing you can do."

Naveen thought to argue with the creature, threaten it, but he was distracted from any response by Maurice's deep, wet coughing. He crouched by the bars and reached through to help his father sit upright so that he could breath easier. Looking into the dear, weathered face, he made his mind up instantly.

"Take me instead."

"You!" the creature scoffed. But then, as if fully realizing the implication of what Naveen had just said, asked in a stranger voice still: "You would take his place?"

"No, no!" his father pleaded, clinging to him.

"If I did," Naveen said, gently untwining Maurice's clutching fingers and standing. "If I did, would you let him go?"

"Yes!" the thing suddenly moved closer, though still clung to the shadows. "But you must promise to stay here forever!"

It sounded ludicrous, like the demands of a child. What was this creature and what twisted sentiments did it's motives spring from?

"Let me see you." Naveen made a demand of his own. "Come into the light!"

Hesitating, reluctant, like a guilty child promised no remonstrations, the creature slid into the pool of brilliance shining in through the skylight. Many of it's features were still hidden in the folds and hood of a shabby, motheaten cloak, but it couldn't hide the claws, the reptilian hands and feet, the scaled face set with the slit nose of a snake and the protruding canines of a lizard. Jagged horns on its head held the hood in place and left the face in perpetual shadow. Only in its eyes was there something even resembling the human, and they were wary, filled with anger and scorn. At first, it hunched like a beaten thing, but then, seeming to realize the need for a display, it drew itself up to stand straight and was able to look at him on the same level.

Naveen involuntarily took a surprised step back and the creature sneered in derision.

"No Naveen, I won't let you do this!" his father pleaded.

At his father's words, the young man regained his composure. He stepped into the light to stand face to face with the beast and said simply: "You have my word."

"Done!" It snapped, darting from the light like a nocturnal thing.

The lock on Maurice's cell door scraped and the bars fell open. The man rushed over to his son.

"No Naveen, listen to me, I'm old, I've lived my life…" The creature cut him off. It snatched him and half-carried, half-dragged the old man down the stairs to a strange conveyance waiting by the door. "Please," he begged of his captor, "Spare my son."

The thing thrust him into the vehicle. "He is no longer your concern," it growled. "Take him far away." At these words, Maurice was borne off by what, he could not say.


	2. Chapter 2

Naveen stood at one of the tiny windows on the tower and watched his father be sent away. He felt the beastly thing staring at him from the stairwell. "You didn't even let me say goodbye," he whispered to the late afternoon light.

"I'll...I'll show you to your room."

The young man turned to look at his jailor curiously. "My room?... but I though…"

"Do you _want_ to stay in the tower?" snapped that slithering voice.

"No." Naveen followed the castle master down the stairs and into the gloomy halls of the edifice. He looked at the hideous sculptures and crumbling portraits on the walls draped with cobwebs. What had this place been? What was it now? He lagged slightly behind his host, listening to a whispering he couldn't pinpoint the source of.

Once again, the creature had assumed the hunched walk of a thing that knew only misery. As tall as it had stood before and as fast as it had moved, he assumed that it had no physical ailment, only a habit of being self-pitying and dejected.

A sharp whisper -

"... _say something…"_

\- had him searching the shadows for the speaker. When he turned back, the other was standing tall again - almost with regality - as if having been dutifully corrected by the unseen ones. It began to lead the way again, this time unbent, but still protectively shrouded in the musty cloak.

"I hope you like it here."

Naveen ignored the absurd statement, but the voice stayed with him. There was something about it, a quality beneath the hissing syllables that he couldn't quite catch.

"The castle is your home now," it continued helpfully. "You can go anywhere you wish, except the west wing…"

Naveen couldn't help himself. "What's in the west wing?"

"It's forbidden!" the creature snapped angrily.

They were suddenly in front of a door that was pushed open to reveal, contrary to the rest of their surroundings, what appeared to be a very comfortable apartment.

"If there is anything you need, my servants will attend you."

Naveen walked through the door, but then caught it before it could close. "There is something I need." he said, purposefully meeting those strangely human eyes. "Your name. What is your name?"

The creature drew itself further up, as if stealing itself against the burn of a brand. "Tee-aar."

"Tier. Tier." the air around them chanted, then: "Dinner, invite him to dinner."

"You will join me for dinner," Tier said emphatically. "That is not a request!"

Tier turned away with a growling hiss for emphasis and disappeared quickly down the dark hall. Naveen found himself alone, but with quite enough thoughts to keep him company, the forefront of which was, as the name had confirmed and the voice had hauntingly hinted, that this thing that sought to keep him here was feminine.

Buried somewhere in the beast was a woman.


	3. Chapter 3

" _...join me for dinner...join me for dinner...join me"_

The phrase ran around Tier's mind, mocking her the same as every shattered mirror had. It was hours past dinner now and her self-pitying rage had blossomed like orange fire until it sent her storming through the manor. She envisioned pounding on his door:

 _"I thought I told you to come down for dinner!"_

 _"I'm not hungry!" would come the petulant reply of a spoiled boy._

 _"Come out or I'll… I'll break down the door!"_

 _And once she did, then what? All she'd have would be a cowering peasant who saw nothing but a monster, just like all the rest. She wondered if grating flattery would work?_

 _"It would give me great pleasure," through clenched teeth " if you would join me for dinner…" a font of vicious anger boiling just below the words accompanied by a "please" that would wilt steel with it's suppressed menace._

 _And he, haughtily "No, thank you!"_

 _"You can't stay in there forever!"_

 _"Yes I can!"_

 _Then would come the shriek as of a thing possessed: "Fine! Then go ahead and STARVE! If you don't eat with me, then you don't eat at all!"_

By the time Tier actually got the door in question, the episode that had played out in her mind had actually cooled the furnace of her anger into a the banked coals of fierce indignation. There, she found that if she had actually flown at the door in a banshee's rage, she would have fallen right through it and, perhaps, out another set of doors and over balcony that they opened on. The latch was not caught and the door lay slightly ajar. It opened at a mere touch.

A single taper burned unblinking on the mantle. It looked as though Naveen had simply dropped with sheer exhaustion before he could comprehend what was happening. One foot was still solidly planted on the floor as the rest of his body reclined at a rather slumped angle against the arm of the lounge. His dark, black hair was tousled, his brow creased with concern. One hand rested against his forehead in a gesture that looked like he had been wearily battling confusion and pain.

It had been so long since she had been in the company of anything human that she felt she could stay like this and merely watch him sleep and know some sort of tranquility. But her senses betrayed her and Tier felt a sudden and overwhelming need to touch him. She even went so far as to reach a hand out toward him before the movement was arrested as she caught sight of her own scaled skin and the long, deadly talons that hovered inches from the sun browned, work worn hand that lay on his breast, rising and falling with the gentle breath of sleep. Tier snatched her own hand back and huddled once again in the folds of her dark cloak. She backed from the room into the dark hall and faded once again into the shadows of her misery.


	4. Chapter 4

When Naveen woke, it was with a painful lurch. He had been dreaming of a woman with snakes for hair and eyes that were so fearful they could turn a heart stone cold with dread. He looked around in confusion, trying to shake the cobwebs of the dream from his mind.

Where was he? A serpent woman? His father gone...the west wing.

The taper had burned low in the time he had slept and he could see, through the vine covered windows, the dimmest grey light of dawn as it began to color the black sky outside . Naveen stumbled painfully to his feet, his body all disjointed aches from the odd position he had slept in. When he went over to examine what was left of the light, he was surprised to find a handsome repast spread on the sideboard. There was good cheese and grainy bread, winter fruits and assorted nuts that were often hoarded after harvest. Naveen knew that he had, though unconsciously, defied his hostess demands and he had really expected hard crusts and water or nothing at all. This welcome meal was outside his sphere of expectations of such a creature and he truly began to wonder what type of ensourced place he was captured in.

The appartment was richly attired and clean, though everything had the aura of being a long time unused. He wondered if the unseen servants had brushed it up in a matter of mere minutes, or if it were often kept as such for "unexpected" guests. If so, what eventually happened to these guests? Tier obviously intended to have kept Naveen's father prisoner until he offered himself. Had he placed his vitality and youth into her hands only to become some tender banquet? Was that why she seemed so disbelieving of his offer to stay in his father's place, surprised perhaps, at the good luck of such a willing lamb to the slaughter?

Naveen completely lost his appetite. He looked around for the short blade usually sheathed in his belt and was not surprised when it did not seem to be amongst his scant belongings. The fact that the door was unlocked and ajar did nothing to reassure him as he guessed that the unseen servants could watch his every move and report to their mistress. Naveen thought desperately of a way to make himself invisible or keep hidden and make good an escape. He couldn't scale the walls. One look out the balcony doors told him that they were very sheer and the ivy growth, though thick, was to spars this high up to even begin to hold his weight.

"... _forbidden_ …"

The word came to him as if spoken aloud. Tier had deemed the west wing forbidden. Why? Perhaps because it was in such disrepair that it would afford an easy escape route? Were her servants, somehow, unable to see into this quarter? Whatever the reason, it was to the west wing he would go. The rising sun gave him a solid sense of what direction to take outside his own door and, before very many steps, he was already gratified through careful observation. A heavy tapestry that would have easily concealed any apperiture had developed grown thin enough in spots to let light through from a hidden doorway.

Naveen pushed the impediment aside warily, peering through the opening into the dawn-dim corridor beyond. Here, it seemed, the dust and disrepair hung heavier than on the opposite side of the tapestry. A single, narrow trail had been plied through the dust and grime. It led from the concealed door directly to a grand, spiraling staircase, up and away. Was this the trail of some other, fortunate escapee? Whatever lay beyond, he could do nothing but follow.

As he ascended the stairs, Naveen's hands itched for a weapon. He looked all around for some broken piece of furniture or shard of glass he could use to defend himself if need be. At the top of the stairs in a wide hall, he spied a pair of crossed swords affixed to a plaque on the wall. Upon inspection, though, they proved to be too ornamental and beyond rusted to do him any good. Having found this unexpected oddment - he scanned the walls around him for something else that might work in his defense. For a moment, he was arrested by the shredded portrait of what appeared to be an auburn trussed lady. Her face was was too far damaged to make out any likeness, but her eyes hung in the ruin and seemed to float in the darkness. Naveen swallowed hard when he realized that only dagger-like claws could have made those parallel slashes through the canvas. Turning away from the chilling image, he noticed something else that, like those haunting eyes, hung by itself in the darkness.

A rose.

Shielded by a thin glass dome, it exuded brilliance like a beacon through the grey light of dawn filtering in through the windows. Naveen stepped cautiously into the chamber where the rose resided, it's luminescence pulling him toward it like a moth to a flame. He walked over to it, his eyes transfixed, and gently lifted the bell jar, leaving the rose looking strange and unprotected. Wanting, somehow, to protect it anew, he reached to touch it, to cup it in his hands.

A shadow seemed to quench the rose's light for just a moment, but blinking, Naveen realized it was the light around him that has been blocked and not that of the rose.

Tier's menacing form was framed in a balcony window.

Almost before he could comprehend her presence, she lept into the room and onto the table, slamming the jar back over the rose.

"Why did you come here?" she hissed angrily, the clawed hands scraping slightly against the glass dome.

Naveen backed away, his eyes darting between her and the open balcony window. "I'm sorry…"

"I warned you never to come here!"

"I didn't mean any harm!" Naveen frantically wondered if he could even run from her.

"Do you realize what you could have done!" Tier screeched in anger. She moved toward him menacingly, flexing those dagger like claws as if ready to tear something apart.

"Get out," she said, and for an instant, Naveen didn't register that this warning voice came from the deadly creature in front of him. This thing no longer resembled anything human.

"GET OUT!"

Tier launched herself at Naveen, digging those piercing talons deep into the wood of the door he had just flung back between them. As he retreated into another chamber, he noted with clenching fear that there was no other exit to the place. The sound of splintering wood was awful and all he could do was back further into the musty darkness.

Then, a sound so out of character with the situation came to his ears. If he hadn't actually seen the dog a moment later, he would have decided he'd gone mad with fear. A large, shaggy sheepdog, barking in alarm, dashed past him and into the other room. More surprising, it didn't stop to confront the snarling mass of Tier who was, undoubtedly, a sure target for any such defensive canine.

Dumbfounded both by the sudden appearance of the dog, the only other living creature he had encountered thus far, and the silence on the part of Tier that its barking had induced, Naveen peered back into the room he had only just escaped. Both the dog and the fiend that had been ripping apart the door a moment before were now out on the open balcony, the cacophony of barking carrying in the thin morning air. Tier dropped her hand to the dogs' shaggy head and it became silent with the gesture.

Naveen felt like he was in a waking dream. The shielded rose still stood in the center of the room, glowing on amidst the splinters and wreckage of thick wood. Tier stood with the dog looking out intently on the fields as if the last few minutes had never happened. The young man felt as compelled to approach the pair as he had felt compelled to approach the rose. Tier turned sharply to look at him, her strange face in the folds of the dark hood suddenly transformed from inhuman to the starkly defiant look of a person who had endured too much.

"Wolves," she said simply and disappeared over the balcony without a whisper of sound.


	5. Chapter 5

Naveen could only stare at the open air where Tier had vanished, too overcome by what had passed to begin to gather his wits. Then he heard it. The distant rising song of a pack who had found easy quarry and where summoning their brethren to take it down! At the sound, the big sheepdog growled deep in his throat and began to voice those deep, resonating barks again. Unable to follow his mistress upon her airy route, he turned and charged past Naveen back the way he had come. The young man could do aught but follow.

The dog led him through yet another hidden passage of tight and deeply twisting steps - servant passages perhaps? They showed more use than the thickly cobwebs halls he had been in. Through many turns he followed his shaggy guide until they were before great heavy doors that were only just shut against the winter drafts. Naveen shouldered one open and the dog dashed through. Naveen found himself in a great empty barn with at least a hundred stalls row on row - empty and forlorn. A great ruckus rose from beyond another set of doors which had the look of an entrance through which a dozen horses abreast could pass. It would take a handful of strong men to move them, which was why, perhaps, they stood fixedly ajar amidst dead weeds and newly accumulating snow.

Fragments of a fierce battle were being played out as dim figures swept back and forth across the threshold. A horse danced in a frenzy as dark, streaking figures snapped at her legs, not yet daring to brave the flashing hooves. They would wear her down with fear, then move in for the kill. Other members of the pack were corning off a strange creature in flapping black cloak. Tier beat them back with a heavy branch and her bare claws. She caught a wolf across the muzzle, sending the mortally wounded beast flying, demonstrating the truly deadly nature of those long talons.

Naveen immediately saw that the wolves had gained access over the high walled stable yard by a fallen tree which had been overcome by the weight of winter.

The dog he had followed jumped into the melee without pause, seizing upon a mangy wolf that would have been upon Tier's back a moment later! She turned and let out an unearthly shriek as the wolf gained the advantage of the dog. In one movement and with incredible strength, she batted the wolf away, using the tree branch with such force that the animal flew hard into the stone wall and lay still. Coming out of the swing, she scooped up the large, heavy dog and launched him up into a hayloft out of danger.

At that same moment, a wolf leaped upon the back of the horse, trying to force it to fall into a lashing pool of teeth and claws. Tier sent another of her assailants flying across the yard and lept to the help of the mare. She bodily grabbed the wolf holding to the horse, sinking the talons of her hands and feet into into whatever vulnerable areas she could find. The mare gave a great leaping buck and sent Tier and the wolf hard to the ground where the rest of the pack leapt for the chance to spill hot blood.

Not one of the creatures had even noticed Naveen.

He made short work of three of them with a bit of iron crudgel he had found. He didn't even have time to turn to the last one before Tier had gained some little breath, caught it by the throat and sent it through the falling snow in a grisly arc of raining blood. She stood, wild eyed and tattered, waiting for the next assault. Naveen feared for a moment he had made a horrible mistake coming to her aid, but then he saw the mare push Tier impatiently with her head, as if to say "come out of it, only your friends are left."

Tier's shoulders slumped and she blinked hard against the ever faster swirling snow. She stood up straight and looped one arm around the horse's neck, leaning her face against the soft mane. Then, suddenly, closing her eyes, she fell senseless to the ground.

Naveen tried to take the horse.

He pulled at its lead to turn it away from the still form, but the mare shook herself free and continued to nose and snuff at the black draped figure on the ground. There was a slightly pained bark as the dog found his perilous way down from the high loft and joined the horse at trying to rouse Tier.

The snow had decidedly begun to fall now, shrouding the pathetic tro in a heavy, cold blanket. The dog laid himself across Tiar as if to try and protect her from the cold, the horse standing stoically as it's coat began to ice over.

It was at that moment that Naveen realized how cold it was and how thickly the snow had begun to fall. There was nothing for it. Naveen stepped forward and scooped up the surprisingly light form of Tier and led the small band I to the vast barn.

All the tools for a decent fire were conveniently available in what Naveen recognized as the hostlers apartment. All he had to do was start the blaze. He laid Tier on the floor before the hearth, pushing back the sodden cloak, finding only her shallow breath, drying wolf's blood and leathery skin bordered by sharp scales - she was ice cold to the touch. The shaggy beast of a dog nosed him out of the way and laid himself like a living blanket across her still form.

Beginning to understand, Naveen quickly lit the fire. It quickly radiated warmth. He piled horse blankets around them to hold the heat and it was not too long before the form smothered by the wooly canine moaned: "Boris, you've been sleeping with Countess again! Get off! You stink!"

Tier pushed Boris away and pulled a blanket over herself in his place. The dog stayed snuggled close to her side. Tier threw an arm around him, threading her fingers deep into the knots of his heavy coat.

"Thank you," she said softly,"for saving my life."

"I shouldn't have gone to the west wing," he mumbled, uncertain what else to say.

"This would have ended very differently...if you hadn't," she replied.

There was almost a companionable silence.

"You're welcome," Naveen finally said. He meant it.


	6. Chapter 6

The snow fell heavier, and heavier, and drifted against the walls of the manor, lacing the clinging brambles and ivy with a white sugar frosting. It began to look more like a castle in the sky rather than the haunted place it was.

After a time, Naveen joined Tier for dinner.

She hadn't dined with anyone in all her cursed time, so there was an air anxiety. But Naveen was essentially a rustic, so manners were relaxed and it was merely two inmates of the weather sharing a meal. So much was their company a result of the weather confining them together that to meet day after day to roam the halls became routine.

"May I show you something?" Tier asked one day.

She led him to an ornate door carved with every kind of creature Naveen could imagine and many he could not. Tier pushed it open with a sort of reverence to reveal a large chamber occupied by soaring shelves and row upon row of books. She let out a deep sigh standing reverently in the middle of the room.

"Isn't it the most wonderful thing you've ever seen?"

Naveen could only stare wide eyed, stepping forward to touch one of the lovingly oiled bindings.

"That one has a wise passage about flying and freedom." She picked up the book carefully and delicately turned pages with finger length talons that had only recently dispatched a pack of wolves.

"You should take it," she said, eyes dimming in the shadow of her hood. "You should take all of them! Away from this cursed place where they will only rot into obscurity."

Naveen scanned the hundreds of tomes ranged about the room and gave a small, incrredulous laugh, stating simply "Tier, I can't read."

And so it was that the winter days were further extended in the basic instruction of letters, of working out the scrambled knots of Boris's shaggy fur, of finding the last winter apples for Countess. There was always "sooner or later" to venture away and return to real life.


	7. Chapter 7

Before long, midwinter festival was upon them and, even though it was not said, an ending hovered near.

Tradition is a difficult thing to leave no matter the circumstances, so a small celebration of the season was just something that they did.

Naveen scoured closed rooms for finery that fit and was not too mouth eaten. His curling black locks had grown Wild and he now tried to reign in some control. One of these whispering invisible servant zephyrs slipped it into place, conquering the falling dark mass by capturing it at the nape of his neck.

Finally ready, he stood at the head of stairs that spilled into a vast ballroom lined with candles like stars in a dark sky. Naveen was wondering at the lasting stability of fine silk , admiring the deep purple of the tunic he had found to wear when Tier appeared at the head of the opposite stair. She was draped in a sheath that seemed pure white (oddly complete with a draping yet becoming hood). It was only when she moved a that he realized the material shimmered across the spectrum like a sun flashing fish.

Naveen met her where the stairs combined into one landing and, without even thinking, offered her his hand in the fashion of an escort. Tier hesitated for a moment, then lifted her hand to his. Her claws felt cool and smooth while the skin of her palm held a strange, inhuman roughnessss.

Naveen didn't notice.

He didn't see that strange creature he first had encountered, he now only saw Tier.

They sat down to supper in companionable silence, enjoying delicacies of the season. After a time, they realized there was a strain of song swelling in the soft silence. A seasonal carol sung by invisible voices rose just above the usual whispering level of the the manors unseen denizens.

Naveen smiled slyly, then rose and again offered Tier his hand. As he led her into the deep twilight of the ballroom. Naveen noticed that the dim light caused her face to completely disappear in the depths of her ever present hood. He reached up to push the hood away and found Tier's talons wrapped around his wrists.

After a moment, he gently pushed past her grasp and smoothed the shimmering fabric away. She raised a hand to her bare head, talons rattling slightly over the horns and ridges that swept back from her forehead. Without the hood, she somehow appeared both further from and nearer to being human; farther in all physical aspects, nearer in that her shadowed face was unmasked and was intense with emotion.

Naveen reacted not at all, except perhaps to smile a bit more in wonder. Taking her hands again, he swirled her around a bit of the dance floor in an imitation of court dances he had seen. The strains of the carol died away and the companions wended their way to a certain balcony window glowing with the strange light of a wilting rose.

"Naveen, are you happy here?" Tier suddenly asked after they had sat quietly talking of nothing and watching the moon glowing on the snow.

"Yes," Naveen answered hesitantly.

"What is it?" Tiar needed hardly to ask.

"If only I could see my father again, just for a moment. I was...am all he has in the world."

Naveen looked meaningfully to the snow. It had receded many days ago and the weather had been perfectly for travel. Tier turned to gaze at the rose, despair flooding in from all corners of the dark room.

"Then...you must go to him," she said, a strength and encouragement in her voice from where she didn't know.

"What did you say?" Naveen stood in anticipation.

"I release you," Tier said. "You are no longer my prisoner."

"You mean I can just...go? Naveen asked uncertainly.

"Yes," she said, standing as well to look him in the eye. "Take Countess. Boris can lead you out of the forest." She clenched on hand into a tight fist, talons piercing skin, as she tried to quell a rising pain within.

"Go now as the sun rises. The winter days are short."

Naveen looked as though he would say something, but Tier moved away and put the table with the rose between them. The rising sun moved him to action and his long stride almost carried him out of the room before he hesitated and turned back to her.

"Thank you," he said softly, almost guiltily, as if there were something more that he could not quite find the words for.

He turned away in the awkward silence and was gone.

Tier sank to the floor next to the table. She drew her hood up again to be lost in its folded shadows, leaving streaks of blood on the pure white from where her talons had pierced deep gashes in her clutching palm.

Such as she had no tears, but a small rain of petals wept from the rose.


	8. The end

The promise of a mild midwinter broke and the days became overcast and threatening, the cold bitter and constant. Tier, back in mourning black, took to sitting for long hours in the chamber of the rose staring blankly out the balcony windows. Every once in awhile, a whispering would break the silence, a slight touch to stir the sad robes.

Tier had withdrawn to a silent, hopeless place that was so far away that she didn't notice when the rose wilted to a single petal, nor when the unknown and startling sounds of intruders rose to the west wing.

When she was finally roused to the consciousness of the manor being under attack, her only response was: "It doesn't matter. Let them come."

And come they did, tearing through the decaying first floor before climbing to the second. Finding nothing living and a general air of abandonment and disrepair, they slowed their advance to explore and loot. A few adventurers pushed onward into the darker regions of the house, especially those who had heard tale of a scaly beast that haunted the upper floors.

When a huntress found the rose chamber, the flower did not even have enough light left to be a distraction. Tier looked up out of her inner misery without almost even a grain of hope that the one she longed for would be there.

A crossbow bolt, which could find the space between even the most protective scales, punched into her, causing her to leap back in sudden agony. She crashed through the balcony doors and sprawled against the railing. A second piercing bolt sent her escaping over the railing, the instinct for self-preservation overcoming all other rational. Her flight was far less graceful than a previous leap in defense of her dear Countess.

Tier clung haphazardly to a cornice statue that, unhooded, could have been her double. The sky chose then to rumble and finally break forth with freezing wet sleet. Another crossbow bolt was powerful enough to demolish the crumbling statue and reveal her to the storm and to her pursuer. She heard the deadly click of another bolt sliding into place and looked wildly for an escape as everything became ice-covered and deadly slick.

Through a haze of pain, blinding sleet and growing panic, she sited another balcony within leaping range. Tier flung herself toward it just as another bolt found its mark. She screamed in pain, barely catching the wrought iron railing. She had no strength to pull herself up and could only cling for a moment, faintly contemplating the coming end on the sharp rocks of the slope far below.

"Tier!"

Her talons slipped as she heard Naveen's longed for voice above her. His strong grip caught her wrist just as she began to fall and he pulled her bodily over the railing and out of the storm to collect her against him.

Tier blinked hard, her sight dimming as a strange paralysis came over her.

"Naveen, is it really you?"

"Yes," he whispered pressing her hand against his face.

"I thought I ...would never...see you again." Her voice shuddered as Naveen held her, distressed by the dark blood beginning to stain the carpet around them.

"We're together now," Naveen said tremulously. "Everything will be fine now, you'll see."

There was a crash somewhere far away and the tinkle of breaking glass. Something that may have once been a rose was trodden under foot as another room was cleaned of its valuables. The last petal had parted ways with it a moment before and drifted on the tumultuous air out over the balcony.

"At least... I got...to see you...one last time," she sighed on one last breath, her eyes closing and hand falling slack from his hold.

"No!" he groaned, pulling her tight against him. "No, please don't leave me!" he pleaded, her cold, still face against his own. "I love you."

A rose petal silently drifted by, settling on Tier's dark hood as Naveen was gripped by shuddering sobs.

Just out the window, the sleet was suddenly interrupted by a lance of white fire, then another, and another until it was as if the sun were weeping. The rain of oddly cool fire was exclusively local to the manor, a fact which quickly persuaded the the invaders to abandon their various routing and exit the premises. Their departure was aided by a sudden gusting wind that filled the halls and seemed to want to pull Tier from Naveen's encircling arms. He had to duck his head to protect his face from the sudden mad flapping of the dark cloak.

The wind seemed to blow away the hanging gloom from the halls, the white fire stripped the outer walls and roofs of the clinging viney shroud. From a distance, the strange gale uncovered a stately structure shining in a secluded glade.

The entire storm died away as suddenly as it had come.

Naveen had finally been forced to drop to a protective crouch over Tier's still form. He pushed his wind wild hair from his tear stained face and sat back in shock. A deep sigh from the black cloaked figure on the floor brought him immediately back to the moment. Before he could touch her, Tier came up to a reclining position and pushed the concealing hood back.

A fall of glossy brown locks spilled around and hid her face.

She lifted a hand from the floor and stored at the gracefully fingers and smooth, human skin. She turned completely and fully faced Naveen, all her features that of a young women who had suffered no harm.

Naveen moved back in sudden surprise.

"Naveen, it's me," she gasped, reaching for him.

He stared at her in wonder, slowly reaching to take her hand and looked hard into her eyes. There he found the woman he had been seeing all along.

He pulled her passionately close, staring and staring into her face. "It is you!" he finally breathed.

Naveen cradled Tier to him and kissed her with all the promise of a happily ever after.


End file.
